Thursday, December 25, 2008

And on this day, I have to post the lyrics to my favorite Christmas song, The Rebel Jesus. It's a little obvious in places, but it captures my feelings, on the holiday but especially the man, entirely. If you can get your hands on it, please get the Martha Wainwright version on the McGarrigle Christmas CD. I had heard the Jackson Brown version before as we also have the Chiefton's CD on which this originally appeared, but Martha Wainwright recorded the version which really is moving. Enjoy your Christmas!

The streets are filled with laughter and lightAnd the music of the seasonAnd the merchants' windows are all brightWith the faces of the childrenAnd the families hurrying to their homesAs the sky darkens and freezesWill be gathering around the hearths and tablesGiving thanks for all God's gracesAnd the birth of the rebel Jesus

They call him by the "Prince of Peace"And they call him by "The Saviour"And they pray to him upon the seaAnd in every bold endeavorAs they fill his churches with their pride and goldAnd their faith in him increasesBut they've turned the nature that I worshipped inFrom a temple to a robber's denIn the words of the rebel Jesus

We guard our world with locks and gunsAnd we guard our fine possessionsAnd once a year when Christmas comesWe give to our relationsAnd perhaps we give a little to the poorIf the generosity should seize usBut if any one of us should interfereIn the business of why there are poorThey get the same as the rebel Jesus

But pardon me if I have seemedTo take the tone of judgementFor I've no wish to come betweenThis day and your enjoymentIn this life of hardship and of earthly toilWe have need for anything that frees usSo I bid you pleasure and I bid you cheerFrom a heathen and a paganOn the side of the rebel Jesus.

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Last night we had our Hanukkah party, which was every bit the bacchanalian affair, minus, uh, the sex and drugs. [There was homemade lemon liquor, and that's sort of bacchanalian, right?] We had my two wacky, wonderful friends of "Germanically-oppressed" heritage (and not one of us is from the same background, which shows you just how busy those Germans were in the early-to-mid twentieth century with the business of oppression), and their mutual families, as well as my mother and our son's honorary uncle. It was such a warm and festive night. The kids went wilding, of course, and we had our fill of latkes, mock chopped liver, three different salads, stuffed mushrooms, spicy olives, eggplant caviar, donuts, cream cheeze blintzes, sugar cookies: what a feast! John peeled and grated ten pounds of potatoes and chopped three pounds of onions - with nary a complaint, as the man is decent and good, and, I suspect, also paying penance for his German heritage - and I did most of the other food-related jobs.

During the Jewish holidays, I always get very sentimental, missing my grandparents. My grandparents were not religious, but they did celebrate the holidays in that way that secular Jews do: with food. As my kitchen filled with that heady scent of lots of hot oil, something uncommon here as I seldom fry, I was transported back to my grandmother, and she to me. Food has a deeply emotional pull to us, as we know. I remember a party I was at once years ago, I must have been sixteen or so. My grandmother had brought rugelach, an Ashkenazi Jewish pastry wrapped in a crescent around a sweet filling, usually preserves, dried fruit and nuts, and baked. A middle-aged man my grandmother had just met, a friend of a friend, closed his eyes in pleasure as he took a bite, sighing: he too was transported to his own childhood, to his mother's or grandmother's rugelach, to warm memories and comfort. Swept away, he impulsively leaned over and kissed my grandmother on the cheek, causing her to giggle. She was both a nurturer - she loved to nourish people, which is probably the root of my love of cooking for others - and a shameless, though always innocent, flirt. From Proust's infamous madeleine to M.F.K. Fisher's ever-elegant prose, musings on food and its profound affect on the human spirit has been explored with depth but it is never quite enough.

Once again, I feel grateful to be able to revisit these old foods while still maintaining my commitment to veganism. The latkes I made were not missing anything by their absence of chicken ovum: in fact, they were more meaningful because I could pay tribute to my grandmother and, oh, yeah, the Maccabees, on my terms, in my unique way. Plus, they rocked! I also feel grateful to have such wonderful, supportive and passionate friends with big appetites, who showed up, variously, wearing big ol' sequins and bearing luscious European dark chocolates. (I just ran off and gobbled the last two squares.) I am blessed.

Shalom, everyone.

PS - Can I just tell a little cute thing about my son? Of course I can. It's my blog. Anyway, he creates holidays for our cat. Hanukkah has been re-imagined as "Hanu-meow" for Clover, during which time she celebrates the Miracle, which was the day that she beat our dog in a race. Never mind that she is a nine-month-old kitten and he's a thirteen-year-old, partially stroke-addled basset hound - this is apparently miraculous enough to celebrate and who am I to begrudge a little celebration? Happy Hanu-meow, Clover...

Saturday, December 20, 2008

The last few weeks have been a whirlwind of activity around here, trying to finish up one intense self-imposed deadline (I would say "Mission accomplished!" but that term is pretty much meaningless and tainted with ugliness post-W) and contending with all the busyness of the season. There is so much to do around here this time of year, not just buying gifts, decorating and whatnot. There are Santa-commandeered 'L' trains to catch, Tchaikovsky-scored ballets to view, cranberries to string and pine cones to spread with peanut butter and roll in bird seed, and on and on. Mind you, we haven't done any of those things yet, but it still takes up my time thinking about all the festive and enriching activities that we are currently missing. So I am actively absorbing my time in a state of neurosis, which is perhaps the purest expression of my holiday spirit seeing as I am of the Semitic, desert-wandering orientation.

For what it's worth, I'm not all that impressed with Hanukkah either, which kind of seems like an also-ran this time of year, though we do celebrate and will be having a little vegan latke-devouring party - maybe we should make it into a competition? - at our house Tuesday night with a couple of my shiksa friends and their families, my mother and Justice's adopted uncle. I'm looking forward to this very much. It has always struck me as comical and perhaps very telling that at the foundation of nearly every (or is it every?) Jewish holiday story is the hard kernel of oppression. Even Purim, the supposedly fun Jewish holiday, has the threat of the annihilation of the tribe at it's core. I think that in my heart of hearts, I have a distinctly Jewish soul, so I cannot help but find this to be very funny. (My friend - a fellow Jewess - and I were belting out "Sunrise, Sunset" together a few weeks ago and after we sang, "One season following another, laden with happiness and tears...," I pointed out that this is the summation of the Jewish character in two neat lines. Of course we laughed and laughed.) Anyway, some Chanukkah (yes, I'm spelling it different this time, and it occurs to me that maybe there are so many different spelling of the holiday because Jews are an argumentative, contrarian people) ideas: we will dance the Hora, which my son picked up at his cousin's Bat Mitzvah last weekend, and, oh, I think this is a good one: I want to go Hannukah caroling. That's right! Our neighbors to the south, Ed and his adult son, will be hearing about dreidels fashioned out of clay, and our neighbor to the north, a lively Jamaican woman, will be treated to "Chiri Bim." Because that's the sort of neighbor I am. To me, it's just hilarious, this subverting of Christmas traditions, and there's this added layer of, "Wow, maybe people will see how invasive and arrogant it feels when it seems like the rest of the world assumes you are a religion that you are not." Welcome to the Jewish experience!

Anyway, latkes, salads, Star of David-shaped cookies, perhaps even an attempt at vegan blintzes, something I have not had since I was a teen. Sounds good, right? Hopefully once Chrismakkah is over, I'll be able to post more vegan feminist-y screeds. For now, though, the bed is beckoning me.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Well, I've been swept up in all the holiday madness and a close deadline so I've been unable to update. I will as soon as a) I have more time, and b) I have something interesting to report. Hopefully that will be sooner than later.

This list is titled "Things To Not Fear." Each time he speaks to me or his father about one of his recent anxieties, we look at the title of the page, remind him that this is a page listing things one does not need to fear, and we have him put a little check mark next to the fear in question. We have a separate sheet of paper, titled "Things To Fear," upon which we have listed items like touching fire, broken glass, crossing the street without looking. We review this as well.

My son has always been someone we would call cautious, trepidatious. This characteristic revealed itself from his earliest contact with the world outside the womb: he is the child who would hang on to my legs before venturing out, the child who we never had to worry about rushing ahead of us down the street. Instead, he is the one with the magnifying lens, stopping every few feet to examine a new leaf, an interesting insect. As I am someone who always seems to be in a hurry, jam-packing my day with sundry activities, he has taught me a lot about slowing down, about noticing and appreciating things that are, you know, supposed to be influential to writers. It has not always been easy to take my natural pace down several good notches, and I have not always done it with grace, but in my more generous moments I see how much this little soul, looking through the bushes for robin's eggs, studying tracks in the snow, has changed me for the better. He has helped to reconnect me to the better days in my childhood, and he has helped me to see that there was, in fact, happiness there. He has also helped me to see the value of taking things in at a deeper level.

This recent stuff, though, has been one of the more challenging things that I've gone through as a mother. My son needs nearly constant reassurance that his life is not being threatened by Something Out There. In keeping with the pastel purple childhood recommended by Rudolf Steiner, since my son was born, we have steered away from television, from most media, in fact; I don't even listen to public radio, so much am I trying to protect my son from news about car bombs and terrorism. Somehow, though, all that ugly stuff has started to filter into his world. It was inevitable unless we wanted to raise my son in a very cloistered, isolated way, which we do not. Still, this recent spate of anxieties, which seems to be him trying to adapt to this violent world and creating a generalized internal fearfulness in response, has been a bracing blast of cold, hard reality into our generally pretty free-spirited home. How it has taken hold of our son and entered our home, I am not exactly sure, though I do suspect a large cause has been being exposed to all the other kindergarten children, kids who can talk about shooting others and going to jail and falling airplanes with a jovial grin. Not my son, though. He takes it all very seriously.

When my son was discharged from Children's Memorial Hospital, where he had been sequestered for six days after he was born, the first thing we did after changing him into the purple tie-dye onesie we had picked up for him a few weeks before at a Madison hippie shop, was put Bob Marley on the car radio. I sat in back of the car with him as my husband drove, squeezing his tiny hand in mine, staring at this alien being with the big, soft eyes, and sang along, "Don't worry about a thing, 'cause every little thing is gonna be all right..." The very first thing I felt he needed after six long days of hospital sounds - of beeps and intercom pages and crying babies - was beautiful, peaceful reassurance. And for me, nobody quite does beautiful, peaceful reassurance like Bob Marley. Given my childhood, that so much was spent under a malevolent, threatening dictatorship, raising my son in a protected, gentle way was absolutely imperative to me. I know there are parents who vehemently disagree with this approach, implying that those who do are raising coddled, unrealistic children, and maybe they're right. Maybe I should have been exposing my son to the ugliness of this world early on, and maybe I am to blame for his current state of struggling to process it all. I am willing to accept that this is so, but I am unwilling to sacrifice his childhood so he, at six, can digest violence better. I am asking myself a lot of questions right now, and this is pushing me to be the best mother of my particular son that I can be, knowing that being a mother is an active, adaptive, dynamic role. I return, again and again, to walking the path that is uniquely our own, one of joyful engagement with the things we value: creative expression, community, independence, non-violence.

I guess what I am saying with this post is that I'd like the violent assholes of the world to just, you know, cut it out. We were eating dinner last weekend at our favorite Indian restaurant, and the radio was playing loudly in the kitchen. He heard about Mumbai that night, of the killing of Americans in the hotels there, in the restaurants. I tried to distract him but he'd already heard enough. He stopped eating and sat silently for a moment. "Mom," he said, "I don't ever want to go to India." Now India, the birthplace of vegetarianism and Gandhi and satyagraha, is a boogeyman to my son, too.

I know that we'll get through this. But in the meantime, really, could all the violent people of the world just take over a little island together somewhere?

Thursday, November 27, 2008

The past couple of days have been a monsoon of food preparation around here and the sink seems to be filling itself up with implements in various stages of encrustation: every skillet pan we own, the blender (three times over), the Kitchenaid mixer bowl, whisks, spatulas, knives, the slow cooker, wooden spoons, baking pans, and on and on. We had Thanksgiving dinner with my mother last night, for which I made tofu filled with a brown rice-veggie stuffing, an attempt at this decidedly non-vegan, Lipton-y noodle dish my mother used to make (wasn't as good, I have to admit, but I think it can be if I tinker with it a little) and a soy pumpkin ice cream pie from a cute local shop, The Brown Cow. Today is our main Thanksgiving meal. We will be joining friends for a vegan Thanksgiving meal together. This is one of my favorite days of the year.

We have been sharing Thanksgiving together for - who knows? - maybe ten years. There are usually about thirty of us who gather for this meal, many of whom have family out of town, and many others who just can't bare the gory sight of a bird's carcass on a day that is supposed to be about gratitude. [That last part is in full knowledge of all the plagues and violence and Howard Zinn-type of information we now have about the founding of this country; I meant more the revised version that Marcy lectured that ingrate Peppermint Patty about at Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving fiasco.] For this meal, our group of assorted friends morphs into a family for the night, a family of the best kind: a consciously created one. It is always an impressive feast. This year I made a white bean cassoulet with what I think will be a fantastic tempeh-shallot confit (this is from Robin Robertson's wonderful slow-cooker cookbook), a clementine orange and pomegranate kanten and a pumpkin-lemon swirl cheesecake. These items will share the stage with dozens of lovely, hearty dishes. As Sly Stone sang, everybody is a star. It will be beautiful as it always is on Thanksgiving.

Some people are surprised that I don't spend Thanksgiving Day with my mother and biological family. It took us a while to decide to cut-and-run but since we did it, Thanksgiving has transformed from one of my most loathed days of the year into one of my most favorite. I will always remember being the fifteen-year-old lone vegetarian at the Thanksgiving table and told to "eat around it" with "it" being in nearly everything in addition to the main course: the gravy, the stuffing, even pieces in the rice. Um, could you pass the cranberry sauce? No turkey there, right? It is not usually fun for omnivores to chow down in front of vegans on Thanksgiving either, let's be honest about it, as we are the elephant in the room, seemingly ever-ready to pop a Meet Your Meat video in the family VCR or sighing melodramatically in disgust. (I think that there were probably a few years there where I was covered in graphic buttons and an insufferable dinner guest.) Given all that, when we finally bit the bullet and said, "You know what? I think we'll just go to the vegan Thanksgiving this year," there was palpable relief felt by everyone. This way, they can eat their bird carcass in relative peace and we can enjoy all the good stuff. (Yes, I cannot resist the lure of the snark, even today.) My mother does have my brother and his wife's extended family of TV-watching-enthusiasts to celebrate the day with, though, so she's not alone. See? Everyone's happy. (I realize how arrogant I sound, especially to my dear friend, O. - no, she's not Oprah - who is probably reading this right now saying, See how self-righteous you sound? based on a conversation we had earlier in the week. Yes, dear O., I am painfully aware but I have to ask: is it possible for me to have certain values and a consistency of applying these values to my life without being labeled self-righteous? Given the framing of the debate, it seems that I am self-righteous if I am consistent and hypocritical if I am not. Can I possibly win - or, rather, not lose - in this situation? It seems that either way is designed for me to lose. I say this with love, of course, O., as well as my patented blend of self-righteousness and arrogance...)

Confusing parenthetical asides notwithstanding, I have a lot to be grateful for this Thanksgiving. They are, in no particular order:

My wonderful husband, who just gets. um, wonderfuller every year. We have gone through some dark times the past couple of years, but we have done it together and with new grace each time. That being said, we could both use a little less wisdom these days, and it certainly seems like we're on this path. I love him so much.

My son, who has enriched my life in so many ways that to speak of it is diminishing. He has taught me more about what I want in my life - and what I do not want - than anyone else ever could. He fills my heart, and this is where I turn into a walking John Denver song, so I will stop.

My friends, who are such a unique, smart and kick-ass group of people. Whether they agree with me or challenge me, they are always cherished and loved.

My animals, who teach me to curl up in the sun and give back everything I get many times over.

That lovable wingnut Sarah Palin, for throwing the election, and Barack Obama for being there when she threw it. For the rest of the country for finally, finally waking up.

For my health and energy, always in abundance.

For finishing the first draft of my novel and for the people who have supported me throughout.

For my new red hat with pink cat ears from the crafter from Madison.

For creative inspiration, wherever I find it.

For my renewed commitment to getting published.

For the sense of optimism and hope that is so much more bountiful this year.

Monday, November 24, 2008

So! After having very spotty service for a couple of weeks, we finally scheduled for our friendly neighborhood Comcast technician to visit. I had waited home during the arranged hours (3:00 - 7:00) only to have no one show up. A technician called a little after 7:00 and told John that he would be at our place in twenty minutes. Twenty minutes went by, thirty minutes, you get the picture. John called the Comcast office to find out what was going on and the person who he talked to said, "Oh. That call was canceled." John said, "What? I didn't cancel the visit." What do you think was the perfect corporate, totally devoid of any trace of humanity, response to this? "I didn't say you canceled it, sir." [Later that evening, when talking to some poor soul who happened to answer his irate call, we had another Pythonesque moment: after hearing John describe what had happened, the Comcast employee said, "Our records show that the visit was canceled at 8:22." John looked down at the phone in disbelief, then, barely maintaining his composure yelled, "That's now. It's 8:22 right now!"]

The next day, after leaving messages with assorted managers and filling their voicemail capacity with our tale of woe, we received a phone call from another technician who confidently assured John that he would be at our home in ten minutes. Do I need to tell you that this previously scheduled visit also ended with John becoming all Tourette's Syndrome-y and twitchy when the appointment was inexplicably and internally canceled by Comcast?

Corporations make me feel all warm and snuggly inside... I could bask in the good-natured glow of corporate warmth all winter.

Monday, November 17, 2008

Living in the Chicago area in the post-Obama president-elect era is a little thrilling, I will admit, as it seems that everyone I talk to is one person removed from him or knows the man personally. Maybe it's a testament to how involved the Obamas really have been in the community or there's some wishful thinking going on or, maybe again, it's really that Chicago, despite it's massiveness, is still a pretty small town at heart. Think I'm exaggerating? Think again.

For example...

The woman who cuts my hair once sneezed and the next thing she knew, Barack Obama walked over and handed her a tissue. He was really cool about the whole thing, and it wasn't the scratchy kind of tissue either.

My neighbor met Barack Obama while they were both members of a Civil War reenactment group. Contrary to rumor, my neighbor was not part of an underground cell of enthusiasts who took things a little too far but if he was, he still makes no apologies for it. His book will be out in Spring 2009.

When I was selling peanuts at the Cubs game the summer before my sophomore year in college, Barack Obama bought three bags, reconsidered it, and returned one. He impressed me with his candor and willingness to dialog his decision through with me. He was very transparent about his process.

The guy who restocks dressings at the Whole Foods salad bar on North Avenue knows Barack Obama from this one time he pointed out the location of the restroom to him, and it was clear that he was not a dick despite what the guy in produce with all those tattoos said, who didn't even talk to him and is an anarchist or something.

My mother met Barack Obama when she hired him to babysit me as a child; he had a huge 'fro back then but she wasn't scared. She had watched The Jefferson’s in the past.

One of the other mothers at my son's school knows Barack Obama from interning together during the summer before he met Michelle. They dated briefly and it ended badly. She drove by his house one night to see if he was home - she admits she was a little unhinged - and when she drove past, he happened to be getting out of his car. They had direct eye contact and she was mortified. That was the last time she saw him face-to-face, but she still voted for him even though she was embarrassed somehow.

The barista at Barack Obama's favorite coffeeshop in Hyde Park says that for some reason, she has not been working when he's stopped in, but she has served a woman rumored to be Michelle Obama's pedicurist, and she apparently thinks she's hot shit or something and never, ever gets off her damn cell phone.

My son met Barack Obama when he was driving a bumper car at Kiddieland over the summer and the president-elect drove right by him, smiled, and shook his hand. My son thought the smiling man might have candy, so he was disappointed to drive away empty-handed.

Elizabeth Hasselbeck does not live in Chicago, but she did meet Barack Obama when he was on her television show and she questioned his character. Still does.

This guy who knows my friend through her neighbor's cousin met Barack Obama when they happened to be waiting at the DMV together, and he says that he took an astonishingly good driver's license photo. It looked like something created by God's personal airbrush.

My mail carrier met Barack Obama when their daughters took ballet together two years ago. He wasn't one of those obnoxious parents but he did accidentally take her seat at the recital when she got up to get some water. He didn't do it on purpose so she doesn't hold it against him, but she does hold it against her husband for not telling him that the seat was taken. It was just another example of his wimpishness.

My ex-boyfriend catered some sort of dinner he was speaking at a few years back at the Art Institute, and after he went back in the cooler to smoke a bowl with Raul, there was some kind of Powerpoint going on that was really trippy - he can't remember what it was about, something with cannonballs, he thinks - and he couldn't stop laughing. No one seemed to notice, thankfully, but, now that he thinks of it, he didn't get any new jobs from the company.

There is also the guy who drives the North Avenue bus, those three security guards at City Hall, my cousin in LaGrange, the woman in the really cool red coat deciding whether or not to buy arugula, my friend (the former Sikh), the guy who fixed my cable modem, Liz, and it’s rumored that tried to clean my windows when I was stopped at a red light (I said “no!” like twenty times) might know someone who knows him.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

As my grandmother would say, I need this like I need a hole in the head.

My son has been talking about ghosts and various other Halloween-related subjects since, well, late September. Typically, my end of the conversation has gone something like, "Oh, you saw a Grim Reaper in someone's yard? Was he scary looking? Neat. Hey, did you remember your backpack? Are you going pay attention at piano lesson? Good. Leave your seatbelt alone. Remember, your right hand is your toothbrushing hand. Hold up your right hand -- that's left, oh, wait, you were right... Oh, you want a skeleton for the front yard? We'll talk about it later. We can make one. We have cardboar - I said leave your seatbelt alone!" Hearing about the various sights has been a refreshing change from the child who ran in abject terror from the countless animatronic gadgets that peppered our neighborhood and, seemingly, every business we ventured into. Still, with Halloween on the brain so much, I have been eager for it to end. Now that it has, though, my son's preoccupation with ghosts has not abated even slightly. If anything, it's increased.

Tonight as I was chopping garlic and ginger for dinner, he and I were talking in the kitchen. One of the net results of Halloween has been that he is all over me like white on rice, and this reverting has reminded me, as I grind my teeth, that I am generally a much more sanguine mother to older children than babies and toddlers. I just get edgy when I don't have enough personal space and quiet time. I have been trying ever so hard to be patient, not a strength of mine to begin with, though, by reminding myself that this is temporary, that there will come a day when I will look back longingly on the time when my son craved my company and reassurances. [He has become fearful these past couple of months since he started school, of guns and violence and cruelty, things he never thought of, perhaps never really knew about, before. This has combined with all the fervor around Halloween to create a sort of generalized fear in him. Among other things, he is afraid that someone is going to shoot him. He asks me, probably around thirty times a day, "No one's going to shoot me, right?" He is afraid to walk to school with me because of this sketchy boogyman figure, every sound he hears outside the house - and there are many as we live near a major thoroughfare - causes alarm in my son. Today, I taught him a new, but very potent, incantation of protection: "Ooga, looga, shasta, shay: Make my fears go away," with a hand clap.]

About a dozen times a day lately, I take a deep breath and mine within for my last reserve of patience, always surprised to unearth a little more. Anyway, tonight wasn't so bad because we were talking and it was a relaxed, comfortable time together. As we talked, my son told me about the ghosts he has seen.

Apparently, there is a ghost who visits every night, a female ghost with seashells in her hair. From what I have gathered, she is not scary. She brings my son fossils to examine, then leaves with them as she departs. He does not know her name but has assured me that he will ask next time. He has drawn a stark rendition of her in purple crayon.

He also apparently saw - or, rather, sensed - ghosts when we were downtown Saturday. They were invisible, he said, but he could feel their presence. No matter how many times he said, "Criss cross applesauce, ghosts go away," something he learned in a book, they did not. They were a little more menacing to him but still nothing he felt threatened by. According to my son, they were everywhere.

So, this is the thing: I am likely going to just write all this off as my son's very active and vivid imagination, which he certainly has in spades. There is a part of me, though, that wonders. He is just the sort of cinematic child who would see spirits: saucer eyes, sensitive, sweet natured. If he is, in fact, seeing ghosts, I'm sort of at a loss for what to do about it. I don't think that that is part of Dr. Sears' canon (Attachment Parenting for Children Who Communicate With the Dead) so I'd probably have to put on some patchouli oil and take my skeptical self over to the Indigo Children section of the bookstore. I will be welcomed there by spacey-eyed, breathy women in diaphanous skirts and their 'shrooming spouses. Ay yi yi. Like many challenges my son and I have met together, I am hoping this one fades away really soon.

Two not-so-quick stories this brings up...

1. Not too long ago, there was a series on A&E called Psychic Kids, which was 90% lame, 8% creepy and 2% neither here nor there. (That was its exact compositional make-up, by the way.) It was a documentary series (I guess a more highbrow way of saying reality show) about children who could apparently see and sense ghosts. The 8% that was creepy tapped into the square inch of my brain dedicated to being actively fearful of Danny-From-The-Shining-Plus-The-Kid-From-The-Sixth-Sense. I watched the series, which came complete with a melodramatically queeny ghost-huntin' adult and bizarre child psychologist who basically repeated the same refrain over and over ("So you're feeling very alone with this whole seeing dead people thing, aren't you?") because the novel I've written features an empath and there is some cross-over. My interest was strictly professional, I assure you. Anyway, I had just watched an episode and it was around 10:15 at night. I was finishing up on some email, and I heard a tapping on the window of the sunroom where I work. Mind you, the episode I had just watched featured a child who was tormented by a ghost who tapped at the window. I jumped about a foot in the air, screaming in terror, to see this shrouded figure on the other side of the glass. It was our family friend, Uncle P. with his gray sweatshirt hood over his head, who had come over to, I don't know, terrorize me. Either that or borrow the car. Anyway, even after it was clear to me that the figure on the other side of the glass was not, in fact, the ghost of Scatman Crothers and the word REDRUM was not scrawled on the window in a child's hand, I could not stop screaming. The funny thing was, just like in a comedy, as I started screaming, Uncle P. did as well, equally freaked out was he by my response, so for a good ten seconds, we stood on opposite sides of the window, staring at each other, shrieking uncontrollably.

2. When I was around 15, my parents bought a new house and the family moved. I don't know what it was that inspired us to do so, but one day while we were unpacking, my friend and I got a notion to freak out my mother, which, admittedly, is very, very easy to do. We wrote a note about how this new house was built on an Ancient Indian Burial Ground and any who should live here would be considered fair game for a good, old-fashioned cursing. It was written in the voice of a previous occupant who had been driven mad by the agitated Ancient Indian Burial Ground spirits. Not very original, I will admit: it was basically Poltergeist plus Amityville Horror. We burned the note around the edges to make it look old and yellow, and we immediately arranged for a co-conspirator in my mom's friend, the wonderfully playful and mischievous Mrs. Wasserman, who was over unpacking plates and vases and such. She called my mother over after allegedly putting some boxes in the crawl space and showed her the note she had discovered. My mother looked it over, and said with tears in her eyes, "Well, isn't this just my luck. The goddamn house is haunted. Great." We couldn't torture her for long given how she immediately accepted that she and her family were now cursed, but it was very funny at the time.

Onto an unghostly topic, but one that still chills me to the core.

This evening I was out buying tape at my local pharmaceutical-and-home supplies establishment (in case you have a burning desire to know, it was tape to make the pro-vegan message sign that goes on our front yard with the inflatable turkey every Thanksgiving) when what should hit my ears but the dulcet notes of "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer," that catchy homage to Arctic deer-on-elder violence. That's right: the last of the plastic spiders and orange lights have been finally packed away, so now we need to get whacked upside the collective head with the Christmas spirit. Ho ho ho. Not wanted to lend my voice to the nagging chorus of complainers, I still do have to admit that that first tacky, oversized red velvet bow of the season always makes me cringe more than a little. My state of Christmas Hate typically ebbs-and-flows throughout the, what?, seven months preceding it, usually leaving me in a state of depleted, white flag waving acquiescence by the time December 25 finally decides to roll into town. Maybe it is the Jewess in me, maybe it is the cynical urbanite, but hot damn, the producers of bad Christmas music - and much is varying degrees of bad, from the merely annoying to the outright unholy, let's face it - and the red velvet bowmakers of America, conspire to make it really, really challenging for me to be my ebullient vegan, pagan self you've all come to know. Anyone not liking my disposition until New Years can take it up with them.

But I'm still happy that Obama got elected. No seashell-coiffed ghosts or Christmas-related obnoxiousness can take that away from me!

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

She is named Clover, because my son thought that name was pretty and we adopted her in the late springtime, when the pea family is abundant.

She is very confident. When my son has friends over, she does not run and hide, though it would often be in her best interest to do so. She also runs to the door to great new arrivals, much like a dog.

She has a little black spot on her nose, which is, of course, very endearing.

The mere sight of her will send my ailurophobic (cat phobic) mother shrieking in fear, clawing to get out of the room. My grandmother, who was otherwise a passionate animal lover, also was irrationally terrified of cats. My aunt, too.

She is mostly white with a few black areas. She has a little black spot on her right rear paw.

She is not the cat we had originally intended to adopt. We went in on the designated kitten adoption day and found a littermate of hers to adopt, and we did most of the paperwork but it was too late in the day to finalize the adoption. My son had just recovered from that heartbreak when I got a phone call from the shelter, apologizing that the cat we had put a hold on had been adopted earlier but had mistakenly not been identified as such. The next day, I raced to the shelter once my son was at school and picked out little Paige, soon to be renamed as Clover.My son remarked when we went back to pick her up after school that he remembered her looking different, but I managed to distract him somehow. On the car ride home from the shelter, he sat with her temporary carrier next to him, singing.

I'm glad that she is our cat.

When we got home, I sang, "Crimson and Clover" to her. Over and over.

She likes to sleep between my legs if I'm on my back or stomach and pressed up against the back of my knees if I'm sleeping on my side.

We have several nicknames for her, none very interesting: Clo-Clo, Clove, and Clovie.

She is not scared of our dog. He barks at her and chases her, but she seems pretty unbothered by the whole thing.

Occasionally our dog smells like kitty litter and I really don't want to contemplate that much more than simply stating it as a fact.

We recently put up a second birdfeeder right next to our sunroom where she can watch the proceedings from her post next to our computer. Her tail swishes and twitches furiously and occasionally she has banged herself against the glass panes of a window.

If she were in kitty prison, she would have two teardrop tattoos for the two mice she has dispatched. A vegan should never have to encounter an inside-out rodent, but yet I have.

This is a lame post, yes, even Clover is looking at me all pitifully, but it is what I can manage at the moment.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

It's sunk in for a couple of days now, and I am still grinning ear-to-ear like a loon, wanting to hug random strangers, feeling the sense of hope that had been absent for years. We have plodded along these past eight years, yes, we've survived, that is the human spirit. To have cause to celebrate, though, and to hold our heads high as a nation, to have hope for the future, this is something that has wasted away all these years, drained from us. Tuesday night, we got our fill again, and we cried, rejoiced, swooned at what was unfolding in front of our eyes. I know some of my lefty peers are decidedly reserved in their excitement about Obama: I understand this, and, living in Illinois, I felt I could play with my vote a little, so I voted for the candidate with the values and politics that are closer to reflecting my own. (Hint: it wasn't McCain, for chrissake, and it wasn't the libertarian.) Still, even if you take this other candidate's policies, Obama is the better one for the job: he is who we need on the world stage, starting as soon as possible, to help turn things around. (Really, Mr. Bush can take early leave if he wants and not let that White House door hit him on his ass on the way out. Actually, it's fine with me if the door hits him. Repeatedly.) Obama has the tact, diplomacy, confidence, intelligence and poise needed. A better candidate couldn't be created in a laboratory: he is genetically engineered for this job and, I believe, to do it well.

So, some recollections, observations and snapshots of Tuesday, from Grant Park in Chicago.

*My friend lives in a beautiful condo in the South Loop and rented out the party room of her building. Woo-hoo! John and I made our way downtown around 6:00 after dropping off our son at his grandma's place. Riding on a packed green line train, things looked eerily quiet downtown until we rounded the corner after State and Lake. Looking to the east as our train sped on, crowds had started massing.

We got off at the Roosevelt stop, bordering the southern end of Grant Park, and we immediately looked in the direction of Lake Michigan: crowds were gathering. CTA workers in uniform and police officers assembled around the train station in full force. Out on the street, we passed three officers on the short walk to my friend's place, they (very uncharacteristically) smiled at us; I instinctively reached into my tray and handed them each a vegan mini-cupcake with Obama topper, which they cheerfully accepted. One smiled at his buddies and said, "See? This is what I'm talking about!"

* In the party room at my friend's condo, it was a festive mood to be sure. When we had arrived, the very first returns were up and in McCain's favor. It didn't dampen anyone's spirit. As we helped ourselves to some very good election night victuals, the picture we were all expecting started to emerge: state after state, boom-boom-boom!, started being called for Obama. These were big states, small states, battleground states, all contributing to his burgeoning electoral lead, one after another. We cheered and cried and hugged and ate more cupcakes.

* For me, the turning point was not Ohio but Pennsylvania. I know that it was expected to go in Obama's favor, but it seemed to be such a divided state, I was unsure which side would prevail. Hearing that PA was being called for Obama gave me a huge surge of optimism, almost making me fearful that I would just explode right there like a light bulb with too much energy shot through it.

* With all the new gadgetry, people at the party were also busy texting and receiving messages from their home states (we had Missouri, Ohio, Maryland, Minnesota and others representing). It was an unforgettable moment having one woman breathlessly read from her device (I-Phone? BlackBerry?) that Ohio had been called for Obama and then, three seconds later, Charles Gibson announced that there was breaking news: Ohio had just been called for Obama. Again, we screamed, whooped, hollered, cried, hugged. Even those of us who expected this victory were in disbelief at the rawness of what we felt as tears streamed down our faces: we were witness to a miracle unfolding in real-time. It was time to hit the streets!

* Outside, a couple blocks to our east on Chicago's storied Michigan Avenue, the energy was absolutely palpable. There was a huge line of people still waiting to get past the checkpoints into the ticketed area of Grant Park, and many, many more in every direction, just there to be a part of the experience. People were crying, singing and slapping hands together everywhere around me.

* A voice called out my name and it was my friend, Linda. We hugged and jumped and ran in a happy bunch of circles together. This is my friend who is a vegan raw foods chef and a world traveler; she is also an activist, and we have met up many times in the bitterest of Chicago winters to raise our voices together and march against war. We were breathless and ecstatic at the reality of it: finally our side had amassed for a celebration rather than a protest. Finally, after eight long, wretched years.

* Right when we were in front of the Chicago Hilton Tower on Michigan, a new wave of euphoria passed through the crowd, and people started screaming again, hugging, crying. What? What? John and I turned to the people around us - what happened? CNN had called it for Obama right as we stood in front of the hotel where activists had rioted forty years before. Again, tears, embracing and unbelievable gratitude.

* We finally found a place for ourselves between Jumbotrons where we had decent (though distant) sightlines and could hear the speakers, which was a little discombobulating because we were between two or three and there was a delay. Still, the essence of what was said got through to us loud and clear: this was a historic, remarkable day, one that would certainly be remembered. We were actively participating in an historic event, something that was not lost on us, something we felt very deeply.

* After the acceptance speech, another electrifying experience, I was depleted but in a good way. We, along with hundreds of thousands of others, started walking west. There was this overarching sense of afterglow, of cuddly, post-coital embrace and peace. In talking to my friends there, we all felt the same way: perfectly unified, calm, just right after such an exciting night. As we filed past the vendors with buttons and t-shirts, a peaceful, happy crowd of every imaginable creed, that catchy old Schoolhouse Rock song, The Great American Melting Pot, kept playing in my head. Never had I seen it so clearly in front of me. From the jubilant African American teenagers to the gray-haired lefties with their buttons, young couples kissing and Indians in saris, it was one beautiful, beaming, tear-streaked face after the next. Truly, it was the sort of thing that turns a writer into a Hallmark card sentimentalist. I think I may need an edgy experience just to put add a little angst back into my internal stew but I have a feeling that life will just do that on its own soon enough without my seeking it out. In any case, it is very much a healing thing and I'm enjoying it very much.

* We made our way back to my friend's place to reboot a little, clean and gather our belongings. We shared our stories and basked in the collective euphoria. Some friends - not big crowd lovers - had stayed behind and straightened up. I am thankful to know such good people.

* On the train back home, we ran into my son's gym teacher. It was around 1:15 in the morning. Everyone on our train car was smiling, friendly, warm.

* We finally collapsed into bed, happy and content. I slept hard that night, I think, without dreams and woke in the morning to a lingering sense of contented peacefulness, something I haven't felt in ages.

And so now I must again go to sleep. It is 3:30 in the morning and my son has to be at school at 8:30 for his class picture. Life goes on. (Very sweetly, though, every time I am on the phone with a friend, my son wants to get on the line and let him or her know that Obama won.) But I will say this: life has changed from just a couple of days ago. We have a sense of hope again, finally. We have been liberated. We must now take this dream and make it a reality. All is not perfect, of course: the bigots prevailed and gay marriage was roundly rejected. We still have troops in the Middle East, and we must demand their withdrawal and phase into rebuilding efforts, a new consciousness of peace work. Even with Obama, we must work hard to create the sort of country we want to live in, a more compassionate, truly diverse country that can send ripples in all directions. At least now we are at a good starting point. I truly believe that this good work does not so much originate in Washington but in our home communities: this is how it vibrates out. Let's go into this next administration ready to roll up our sleeves and get to work. But for a moment, let's rest and dream.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Today is the day (vote!) when I go down to my son's school (vote!) and cast my ballot (vote!), which is something I've been looking forward to (vote!) for eight interminably (vote!) long (vote!) years (vote!) during which time I didn't know if we'd still have an election process in 2008 (vote!) or some sort of edict handed down by that disgustingly offensive biomass known as Karl Rove (vote!) to determine who would be in office (vote!). In any case (vote!), it does appear that we've managed to survive the Bush Doctrine (vote!), though many Iraqis, Afghanis and U.S. soldiers did not (vote!), and so later today (vote!), I will go in and indicate my preferred candidates (vote!) and while I wish that I could fuse Obama's statesmanship, demeanor and poise (vote!) with Nader's policies and politics (vote!), I am not feeling too bad about things either (vote!). So tomorrow morning I will be voting (vote!), then plant some last spring tulip bulbs to pacify my need for symbolic integrity (vote!), then I will be heading downtown to celebrate with friends (vote!) and hand out vegan mini-cupcakes with homemade Obama toppers on 'em (vote!) and leftover Halloween candy to my fellow revelers (vote!). It's going to be like New Year's Eve multiplied by a thousand in Chicago tonight (vote!) and, oh my... It's going to be huge.

So go out and vote (vote!) today if you haven't already (vote!) and remember, McCain (don't vote!) hates rainbows and puppies and dark chocolate and all things that are good in the world. Sarah Palin hates 'em even more and would riddle them with Uzi bullets if she could (don't vote!). Next time you hear from me (vote!), we'll have a new president-elect (vote!), one with a funny name (vote!) who will bring a new skin tone to the Oval Office (vote!). Finally, I can breathe again (vote!).

Saturday, November 1, 2008

Even forces of nature must pass. Tornadoes eventually wind down, tsunamis settle, fires are subdued and then, finally, diminish into a few burning embers and then - sssst - out. Something that you could not imagine ever ceasing - so powerful and vital and brimming with swaggering, stunning force - eventually defies our expectations and fades away, either in an extended rumble or a final flash of raw potency. In any case, it is gone, and so, now, is Studs. Like a force of nature, he left us marveling at his abilities, his prowess, his performance. Unlike a force of nature, we watched with smiles on our faces. (I would say that unlike a force of nature, he did not leave destruction in his path, but that's not true: he punched his tough fist through pomposity, ripped holes through bigotry, tore into hypocrisy. More than anything, he chewed up and spit out misanthropy. So he did indeed have a role in destruction, but it was of that very worthwhile kind, something I would be proud to take a few bites out of myself.)

Studs Terkel...First of all, that voice was a reverie for me each time I would hear it. That slightly clipped, nasally, whispering then loud, deeply resonant, words-tumbling-out, words-slowly-and-carefully-chosen, muscular, unique and exquisite force of nature was a marvel to me, something I could never turn off no matter what subject on which it was gloriously pontificating. (I'm sorry if this seems overly dramatic, but, truly, this is what he meant to me.) His voice was also a vehicle that transported me in an instant back to my Eastern European grandfather, who did not sound like Studs, but he was of Studs, if that makes any sense. My grandfather was also hardscrabble, a working class lover of humanity in all its various walks, and, like Studs, did not give a good goddamn about appearances or pretenses. When I would see Studs with his flannel checkered shirt, shuffling, flat-footed gait and unadulterated enthusiasm for the wonder of it all - that this child of immigrants could flesh out ideas with Big Thinkers, that he could hold court with opera divas and shopkeepers and civil rights workers and Method actors for a living - I would think of my grandfather. My papa was not famous and he never wrote a book (perhaps never even read one), but he had what Studs had: that spark, that voracious enthusiasm for life, that unquenchable thirst for understanding. When I would see footage of Studs on the number 147 bus - he never drove - talking with his fellow passengers, flirting with the women, making them blush and laugh, I couldn't help but imagine my much more soft-spoken grandfather in his little gray wool cap alongside Studs, smiling in camaraderie. Studs kept my grandfather alive for me that much longer (he's been gone more than twenty years), which is, by itself, a gift to me.

But back to that voice. Listening to his old recordings on WFMT is like going back in a time machine, to the halcyon Edward R. Murrow days of journalism and radio, and it is a reminder of the pure immediacy and intimacy of that voice in a box, just you and that person on the other side of the box. I rarely listen to the radio these days. When I'm writing, I can't listen to anything, and when I'm in the car, my son and I both go more than a little batty at the sound of a commercial, let alone a whole stream of them, and I can't bear for him to hear the news about car bombs and terrorism, so NPR is out as well. Because my days are most often radio-free, I cannot speak to the medium's current state but listening to Studs' recordings is probably like comparing an excellent dark chocolate with a Hershey bar: infinitely more rich, more satisfying, almost a completely different substance. The way he didn't settle for the superficial, the way he gently helped his guests dive deeper, the way he never took the easy way out, how he was respectful but never reverent, always passionate, this, sadly, I think is a thing of the past. Virtually all media these days are enraptured with the quick soundbite, the pat homily, the scatological teaser that debases us all. For someone with the quick wit, compassionate heart and indefatigable curiosity like Mr. Terkel possessed, radio, at least when he came of age, was the perfect fit with that voice. What a luxury those hours he spent delving into the heart of a subject were for all involved. I hope and pray that we will find a way back to such civilized, honest and challenging discourse again.

Last, two stories about Studs and me.

When my son was about six months old, I was at City Hall at the request of some friends who had organized a press conference on a building, the old Wiebolt's department store on Broadway, they were trying to develop into mixed-income, multi-use property. (They lost and it was turned into a Borders, leeching on my lovely Women and Children First feminist bookstore on Clark Street.) They wanted someone with a child there and I was happy to help out. I didn't realize that Studs Terkel had also been invited and when I saw him, he was sitting on a bench in the marble hall, his fedora on his lap, by himself but with people fanning out around him. I gathered up my courage and sat down next to him, my son in my lap. I usually try to give celebrities space - not that encountering them is such a common occurrence for me - but having touched my mortality a short time prior with the birth of my son (another story for another day), I realized that I did not have time to waste. I also didn't know how long Studs would be around and when I'd have another opportunity. So I sat down next to him and I thanked him for all his work, mentioning in particular a radio interview I'd heard of him that had really touched me (detailed below). He was very hard of hearing at this point, it would have been 2002, so he asked me to repeat myself a few times and seemed a little grumpy about his hearing loss, understandably. Then he turned his attention to my son. At that precise moment, my son reached over and took his famous fedora from his lap, and he placed it on his own head, causing Studs to laugh in delight. (My son never did anything like this again in his babyhood.) He asked me for my son's name, which I am avoiding telling here for my various reasons, and he told me that was a great name, that his friend, Helen Schiller, a liberal Chicago alderwoman, had a grandchild with the same name. Then he took my son's hand and said, "He's got a hell of a grip. Look at this kid," looking up at his admirers around him with a big grin. I handed him back his hat and I thanked him again, then he was promptly whisked off to speak. I was touched in a way that I could only imagine a handful of famous people affecting me and it is something I will always be grateful to have experienced.

Second, an experience with him in a box, on the radio in my car. I had gone to the grocery store, unaware that I was newly pregnant, a few days after September 11th, that bleary-eyed, hazy, horrible time. I was listening to him speak with Richard Steele on Chicago's WBEZ on the terrorist attacks. I sat there for twenty minutes, crying and deeply inspired by his voice, his words and wisdom. In the days when the lunatics of this country were standing out on the streets chanting, "U!S!A! U!S!A!," the letters painted across their cheeks like we were in some kind of goddamn football game, calling for blood, demanding that we bomb Them, of "our country, right or wrong," he called for circumspection and intelligence, to take this grave situation and use it as a time to turn ourselves as a nation around, into a nation of peacekeepers, of humanitarians. In the last few minutes of the interview, he said something that, honest to goodness, I had to gasp out loud at and I jumped to jot down in my cookbook, it meant so much to me. He said, "Dissent, honest dissent, is a natural American attribute." I hold this deeply in my heart and even today when the pull to maintain the status quo starts circling above me like a hungry buzzard (it isn't often, but it happens), I remember his words and think to myself, Hell no! The buzzard always disappears in a flash.

No, curiosity did not kill that cat. May this next journey for Studs be as rich and deep and marvelous as his earthly one. Right now, he's probably lining up the best interviews imaginable: Einstein, Gandhi, Emma Goldman, Plato, Michelangelo, Proust, Joan of Arc, Jesus. Not to mention more fascinating common folk than you can shake a stick at.

For tonight, I will sign off as Studs did on his radio show: Take it easy, but take it. I'll take it, Studs. Thank you.

Thursday, October 30, 2008

I had a dream I awoke from about an hour ago in which Scooby Doo and Shaggy were being chased by a Frankenstein-like monster. Besides the fact that Hanna-Barbera clearly cleaved significant in-roads into my psyche at a critical time in my life, this is notable for the fact that it was a truly scary dream.

Which reminds me that when I was a child, I had an aspiration to "program" my dreams, much like a Tivo: each night before I went to bed, I would tell myself, "First, I'm going to watch a Banana Splits episode, then The Flintstones, then Zoom!, then The Jetson's..." As the last vestiges of the Scooby dream faded from my unconscious mind, I realized that I had finally achieved what I had wanted all those years ago. Better late than never! Now I've got to work on that second dream: being the lone female member of the Monkees. I will probably need a time machine for such an endeavor, but, whatever. (The Monkees was (were?) in reruns when I was a child, but that didn't stop me from my indulging in my fantasies. I wore a yellow pajama top around the top of my head as my long, blonde hair and watched on my parent's good color TV after school with the door shut. One day, my brother and one of his friends busted in on me, sitting rapt on the shag carpet with the pajama top on my head - he must have said something to the effect of, "My sister watches The Monkees with a pajama top on her head. Come on, I'll show you!" - and that was the end of my innocent but bizarre habit. Still, I cannot hear Daydream Believer without feeling the elastic neckline of my pajama top around my head.)

What else? We're getting ready for Halloween around here, and my son has broken out his spinosaurus costume about fifty times since the beginning of October, when John first constructed it (out of all the actively discouraged camouflage* my mother keeps buying for my pacifist child - seriously: a sweatshirt, pants and a t-shirt) and I'm just trying to hold that poor safety-pinned creation together for two more days. It has marinara stains on it and the tail has certainly seen better, more jubilant days, and I'm pretty sure that, if challenged, that costume could pretty much go trick-or-treating by itself at this point but we and it will soldier on, in true camouflage-y spirit.

I'm always a little conflicted about the whole candy windfall that occurs for my son every Halloween. (Of course, we separate out the non-vegan candy and he understands this ahead of time so it does not cause any sort of meltdown.) I understand the parents who take all the candy and leave a nice toy in its stead, but, really, no really, that would not work for my son, not without resentment and a subsequent memoir detailing our various misguided cruelties toward him. In raising a vegan child, you have to juggle what you are willing to accept from mainstream culture and what you absolutely cannot abide. It is important for my son to participate in certain activities and I am fine with Halloween being one of them. Nearly all our decorations have been DIY and it's been a fun and creative experience for him to contribute his ideas and craftiness this year. Though Halloween means junk of epic proportion (corn syrup, artificial dyes, and all that other garbage that is verboten the rest of the year), I remember how exciting and thrilling trick-or-treating was for me as a child and I cannot deny him that. Exchanging his candy for a toy would have worked when he was three, but not now that he's six. We all do what works best for our children, and allowing one evening of purely bacchinalian excess a year is something that I can accept. We've got our organic lollipops for giving out - we had fair trade dark chocolates, but, sorry, we ate them all as they were like the size of 1/4 a square each - and we're set to go.

On a different topic, I think we're going to do early voting tomorrow because I just can't put it off any longer. I cannot wait to cast that ballot (although I think doing it the day of the election would also be fantastic). I got a very heartfelt message from a friend who voted earlier today and wrote of how historic and meaningful and, yes, emotional it felt. I feel it in my bones that things will turn out wonderfully for us next week, and, like the Munchkins after Dorothy's house landed on the Wicked Witch of the East, we will be celebrating out in the streets, especially, perhaps, here in Chicago. We'll be watching the returns from my friend's condo in the South Loop, which is very close to Grant Park, where the officially sanctioned Obama celebration will be taking place. Moments after it was announced that it would be an event requiring tickets, my husband responded and was put on the waiting list. Fifty thousand tickets had already been claimed. Ah, well. It is certain to be a boisterous night all around, so I'm not disappointed.

Off to bed...

Shalom, everyone.

*My son rather likes camouflage because he is into dinosaurs and evolution and natural selection and all that other godless, science-y stuff. I, on the other hand, know of it's association with war and violence (furthermore, aesthetically, it's ugly) but I don't really want to explain all that to my very innocent boy. He does have this particular pair of camouflage pants that somehow ended up in one of his drawers (from my mom, of course, but I can't figure out how it wasn't intercepted by me) and he calls these his "fossil digging pants," which is really what he wears when he digs for nautiloids and such. The problem is that he likes to wear them other days as well and though he does so without knowledge of the dark side of camouflage, I know that to the average lefty he probably looks like some violent, TV-addled miscreant. What is an anti-war, progressive mama to do?

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Most of my life, I have been contentedly medium-sized, occasionally veering off in either direction usually depending on where I was in life (basic equation was love + relative newness of a relationship = thin or relationship - trust + aggravation = not so thin) but, in general, my weight did not seesaw all that much, with a couple of notable exceptions detailed below. This thing with my current weight gain, which really started in my thirties, primarily after my son was born, is fairly new to me and the source of a lot of discontent. In fact, it is probably the biggest area of dissatisfaction with my life.

This is about to get very personal, I fear. Yuck. For someone who is a compulsive writer, I have never been much of a diarist. I think it stems from having a mother who had no qualms about reading any of my personal letters and cards: I just felt too exposed putting my thoughts out like that. Seeing as I am not someone who maintains a dairy, I guess this is as good a place as any to explore that body image bugaboo that's been so vexing to me lately. Yes, it is clearly illogical to release this private, personal stuff into the vast interwebs when I was always so petrified to have just one person read it, but such is the backwards logic that has always ruled my life.

And away we go!

Between my older brother and myself, I was considered The Cute One; I was also considered The Smart One and The Artistic One. As a child, my brother was considered Nice, Funny and Well-Liked, qualities that I, apparently, lacked or had in less impressive quantities. My brother was aware that the little medals he was awarded were considered runner-up trophies, a sort of equivalent to winning Miss Congeniality. In addition to these labels, I was also aware of a nagging feeling of guilt from a young age, one that told me to move aside so my brother could have the spotlight. It hurts my stomach even now to remember. These sorts of comparison-based labels on siblings do not serve anyone. My brother grew up feeling that my parents wished he were more like me, and I grew up feeling like my parents genuinely liked my brother a whole lot more than they liked me.

I figured out in around fifth grade that being considered "chubby" was my way of allowing my brother a place where he could succeed more than me, so chubby I became; later, when I became anorexic in eight grade and my weight plummeted down to 74 pounds, it was my way of feeling like I was finally exercising some control in my life: my parents could dictate almost anything, but they couldn't force food down my throat. I remember my mother threatening to book me into a hospital and I relished the fantasy of the doctors and nurses trying to force tubes into me. "Let them try!" the fantasy me said, cackling like Regan in The Exorcist.

Strangely, and it really pains me to admit this, being anorexic was the first time I really tapped into my personal strength at a critical time in my life. Obviously, there are some very destructive cultural and personal forces at work that make girls turn to anorexia, but, for me at least, my year-long dabbling in it allowed me to know that, ultimately, my parents could not control me, and this was incredibly liberating. I am not in any way advocating anorexia as a pathway to personal liberation, but I do think that our society does not necessarily acknowledge this more nuanced factor into the discourse on compulsive weight loss: that for some of us, especially those of us in abusive home situations (I would imagine that this is most anorexics), it is, at least initially, perceived as a source of power and strength. In short order, though, it spins into a horrible, deadly beast, one that is relentless and fueled on self-hatred, and, of course, there is that hard little kernel of self-loathing right there in the very beginning. By the end of my stint, I could not sit in the bathtub, only float, my concave belly grew hair to keep warm and a "binge" of eight grapes would result in an additional 200 sit-ups (I averaged 500 a day, giving my spine a bad case of rug-burn) and a few sprints around the block. Clearly, it was just an illusion that I was in control, but that illusion was more real to me than anything. The only thing that stopped me - perhaps the only thing that could have stopped me - was seeing my beloved grandmother burst into tears at looking at her shrunken, gaunt granddaughter. I could face just about anything but causing my grandmother to cry.

Throughout high school and college, I maintained the same natural weight, give or take five pounds, and though I did go through cycles of anorectic behaviors a few times, nothing stuck like the way that it did when I was in eighth grade. I have always been blessed with a healthy constitution and an active nature, and though I don't love clocking in on the Stairmaster, I find ways to keep moving, primarily through bike riding.

But I do love food and love to eat. Love, love, love it.

I have never been one who binges, which I have seen up close and personal through observing roommates, one in particular who would eat whole cartons of ice cream in a sitting. What I am is a snacker, perhaps having this imprinted on me at an early age by my grandmother, who loved to have "Just a tich" of this or that, and had no shame over her Rubenesque figure. She also loved to cook, as do I, and some of my very happiest, most contented memories of childhood were by her side at her homey kitchen table, grating potatoes or indenting cookies with my thumb to fill with jam. Food is love, we are taught, or, at the very least, a temporary but effective salve.

I think it comes down to lacking the mechanism, that inner-switch, to stop eating, to say, "Wow, this food is really good but I've had enough," while pushing away a plate half-full of food. This is an absolutely foreign concept to me even as I consciously work at it. It's even challenging for me to not overeat food I'm not particularly crazy about. Since I've been working from home, roughly concurrent with my weight gain, with our refrigerator now just about ten steps away from where I work in the sun room, this tendency toward mindless eating has only increased.

The point of all this? I am constantly fighting between society's projected images of how women are supposed to look (slender with an inexplicably large bosom, which is impossible for all but a few genetic rarities out there), the reality of how I look, and my rebellion against all of it. I am content being a little overweight if I am truly content with it, but I have to admit that I am not. At this point, I don't care if my discontent is because of society's influence or if I am being manipulated by a misogynistic culture, because it is affecting me on a basic level, undermining my functionality. When I avoid having pictures taken with my son or I duck to avoid my reflection in a mirror or I avoid social interactions because I hate how I look, this is also a feminist issue.

So I'm working on it. Weight and body image are complex, deep issues and I don't know where things will end up with me, but I do know that something has got to change as I do not like living in this limbo land. I'm working on it, though...

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

So, due to an unfortunate confluence of events (like, for example, an accidental overdraft, a bank holiday and a long line of people who proceeded us in these circumstances), we went without electricity for two days. There is nothing that makes you feel "ghetto" quite like having a major utility (and they all are major, let's face it) turned off. On the second night of being conspicuously "lights-free," our neighbor, a very nice but busy-bodied senior citizen, came out of his house like a shot the moment John stepped into the back yard after work.

"So," he said, in a voice reminiscent of Grandpa Simpson, "how are things, John?"

"Fine. And you, Ed?"

"All right. How's business?"

"Picking up, thanks."

"Keepin' busy?"

"Yep. Pretty hectic."

Ed still lingering.

"Well, have a good night, Ed."

The first night, after a frantic call to ComEd established that it was not a power shortage that caused our neon peace sign in the front window to stop shining but an oversight on our part, we packed up our necessities for the night and did the only thing feasible to us: we rented a room at the new Trump hotel downtown. Nah. We went to my mommy's condo. This is a woman who I don't think ever has bounced a check, let alone paid a late fee: I distinctly remember her combing through the books at our town's library, searching through the stacks for a book it was claimed she hadn't returned. She found it. The point wasn't that the library had made a mistake: it was that my mother was never, ever late with anything, whether it be a bill or a library book. Lord, how I have rebelled. I think that I am well on my way to financing my own wing at my local library. (It's my little way of doing my part.) (Actually, once my mother was legitimately late for something, but my brother and I were born nine months later.) Given her nature and our past disputes, I have to say that my mother was surprisingly gracious about the whole thing involving her grown-ass daughter and shaggy son-in-law showing up with her grandson in tow and several canvas bags overflowing with pajamas and assorted vegan breakfast items. I think she was grateful for the company.

The next day, John went to pay our bill and was told that our power would not be turned on until the next day, most likely. There were many more people in line in front of us. So we didn't have power again yesterday - which means no lights, no oven, no telephone, no computer - but we decided to tough it out and sleep at home last night. "We'll make it into an adventure," John told me, all Wayne Dyer-style and the poor guy had Nancy Spungen for his audience, hissing and heckling at him. But, still, I had to admit that he was right: it would be an adventure. Hadn't I suggested going on an energy fast a couple of years back in solidarity with an anti-war group? Yes, but then it was my choice, which feels very different. Anyway, we got the flashlights and candles together and we did it. John and our son made dinosaur shadow puppets and a sheet fort for a screen that the cat insisted on attacking, and I read my beloved Flannery O'Connor by flashlight. I had to grudgingly admit that I enjoyed the break. It felt very 19th century and lovely, which was how we presented it to our son, which really is much more age-appropriate then "Let's Pretend To Be A Typical Family in Fallujah!"

This morning when we returned from my son's piano lesson, I saw that the lights were on. Hallelujah! The computer was fired up and all those coveted penis enlargement and bored girls in Russia messages were subsequently crammed into my email box! I could screen my phone calls again! Modernity has returned to us and I am no longer muttering under my breath whenever I see a illuminated house, "Goddamn show offs with all their fancy lights!" The patina of ghetto living is no longer on me but I have to say, I like having lived through a mini energy fast. It has made me very aware of all I take for granted and how wasteful I can be. As I write this, nearly eight o'clock at night, the only light on is the one in the room with me. I'd like to maintain this.

Anyway, with the electricity, I now have a working stove again. (Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches can messily kiss my ass!) I have to say, this is a good recipe. Make it and appreciate all the blessings in your life. It's kind of like massaman curry but without curry as I am fresh out and I had to improvise with what we had left after the refrigerator had been turned off for two days.

Preheat the oven to 400. In a parchment paper-lined rectangular pan, mix the sweet potatoes and the other ingredients. Roast for twenty minutes or so, stirring midway.

Meanwhile, puree in a blender for about a minute until fully integrated:1 14 oz. can 'lite' coconut milk**2 Tbsps smooth peanut butter2 Tbsps pizza sauce (sounds like a gross combination, but trust me on this. The Muir Glen pizza sauce is particularly good)

In a large sauté pan on medium high heat, melt:1 Tbsp coconut oil or olive oil or light sesame oil

To this add:

1 diced red bell pepper3 or more cloves of garlic, minced1 tsp tamari

Oh, yummy. Stir this up for about five minutes. Add the sweet potatoes and the sauce from the blender. Add to this:

1 15 oz. can or three cups cooked garbanzo beans

Cook this together until it is at a low boil, then lower the temperature and cook for about three minutes. Stir frequently with a spatula to keep the sweet potatoes from sticking. Season again with cumin, cinnamon, salt and pepper. Serve over rice or rice noodles.

Even a confirmed sweet potato loather like my son ate this happily.

Nice additions/substitutions: this needs something green, like defrosted petite peas around the time of adding the garbanzos, and you can leave those behind if you wish. Steamed broccoli florets would be nice, too. Toasted, coarsely chopped cashews to sprinkle on top at the end! Tamarind paste instead of pizza sauce. Lemon grass and/or lemon balm at the end. Sliced jalapeno peppers to dress it up at the table. Curry powder in the blender with the sauce. Sriracha sauce for the grown-ups at the table, most def!

*It is really annoying when people are all like, "Oh, I don't know the exact measurements because I'm like a improvisational jazz artist just throwing things into a pot," but I have to say that these are approximate measurements. Yes, because I am like an improvisational jazz artist...

**I know foodies are all like, "Lite coconut milk! How tacky and bourgeois!" But the thing is that I am not a foodie but a food lover, and the sauce was rich enough with the peanut butter.

Sunday, October 12, 2008

So we had our annual Chicago Vegan Family Network (CVFN) Halloween party on Saturday and it was the typical bacchanalian affair we've come to expect, like, if we had rafters, the children would've been totally hanging from them. Instead, rafter-less, the children - there were twenty-five, plus all the parents and an odd honorary uncle and grandmother - were running up and down the stairs, running outside to play, grabbing the cat and running with her, running up to the food table and grabbing yet another cupcake. Everything seemed to involve running in their various Halloween ensembles, princess hats and magic wands and hockey sticks akimbo. John and I have come to expect the CVFN Halloween potluck to be a major event in our year given the preparation involved, which includes cleaning, cooking and baking, craft-making, goody bag construction and assembly, and every year, at around ten in the evening immediately following the party, we are faced with the aftermath (including but not limited to: plates, bowls and cups on every available surface; sticky substances of unknown origin on the floor; a melange of crushed crumbs like New Year's Eve confetti; a collapsed bed upstairs; assorted left-behinds - hats, accessories, toys) and every year, somehow, we are grateful to have done it. I am willing to accept that this is proof positive that we are deranged, hoping that if I ever need to use the insanity defense - which, really, I hope my life is not on that particular trajectory - but at the very least, I can point to our continued enjoyment of an event that threatens to destroy our home. But you would love it too, unless you happen to be a cranky Republican hunter. In which case, like I really care what you think.

A little background might be useful here. My friend Lisa and I started CVFN four years ago - this was our fourth anniversary, actually - to create a community of vegan peers for our children. At the time, my son was two and Lisa had three- and one-year-old boys. Our mutual friend, a fellow who goes by an adopted name I will not mention here and the odd honorary uncle I mentioned above, connected us. At first, before we met or spoke, we were a little wary of one another because this mutual friend keeps some rather colorful company. Let's just say that he is essentially homeless (by choice), has a long, white beard (some might say scraggly) and is inclined to wearing multiple layers of clothing at a time regardless of temperature. He is also among the best groomed of his social circle, positively buttoned-down in comparison. When he told me about this vegan mother in Evanston he wanted me to meet, I was pretty much expecting a Dumpster-diving, VW-living, hanging-for-a-bit-before-we-leave-for-the-Phish-tour kind of person, which, while perfectly lovely for another time in my life, was not exactly what I was seeking at this particular time. Lisa, apparently, was expecting the same person with the same sort of feeling of dread with me, so we were both pleasantly surprised to find that neither was shilling 'shrooms or bootlegged cassettes from the show in '93 out of our cars. Whew!

Anyway, once we were mutually assured that neither was subsidizing the patchouli incense industry nearly single-handedly, we determined that, yes, we would very much like to start a local vegan family network, and, thus, the Chicago Vegan Family Network was born. We started with five families the first month and each month or two it seems to get a little bigger. Now we have, I think, forty families on our list, but it's generally ten to twelve families each month at our gatherings. Things slow down in the summer months with traveling and busyness but pick up again in October. It is such a joy for me to look around the room each month and see this robust and diverse group of people. The children, too, get along spectacularly well. In our four years, I do not recall a single fight. That's almost stretching the bounds of reality when you get that many children together.

Anyway, back to the party. We always start out trying to be organized, trying to pace ourselves well by starting a week early with preparations, but we always wind up windmilling our arms around like some jacked-up cartoon characters in a desperate attempt to complete everything by five o'clock, when the first guests begin to arrive. Saturday, I was making peanut butter cups (yeah, they were amazing) in the kitchen when I stepped on a splinter - barefoot in the kitchen, just as God intended - and I called John over to get the damn shard out. I didn't even have time to stop for three seconds. So I lifted my foot, rinsed it in the sink and I did not skip a beat in my chocolate making while John got the splinter out. Later, John was cleaning our son's room with him, in other words, shoveling piles of assorted dinosaur bones and game pieces into sundry boxes, when, as he was putting away a puzzle, about ten more wooden puzzles went crashing on his head. Again, without skipping a beat in my duties, I laughed, correctly guessing at what occurred and moved on, dipping pretzels in chocolate. This is our life when the annual Halloween party is upon us. It doesn't matter how early I start with getting things done as there is just that much to do. If I have time left over, I'm going to find something else to do (more cookies? Paper bats? Skeleton rock skulls?) to make our party that much cooler. And, yes, I already admitted that I am crazy.

I think that I am partially motivated to overcompensate because of the perception that vegan parents are causing our children to miss out. My child deprived? Hell, no. I am going to make frosted pumpkin and bat cookies because that's what little omni kids eat this time of year. I am also going to raise them that and throw in some chocolate covered pretzel rods (magic wands) and cupcakes with gummy worms. Yes, I found vegan gummy worms because, you know, the lack of them creates a gaping hole in the vegan diet. So they exist now, perhaps this is their inaugural year, and our kids got to have them at our Halloween party. So nya nya nya, omni haters: anything you can do, we can do better! (I do see how crazy this is, really, and maybe some day I'll be content just to know in my heart that vegan children are not deprived, but for now I am inspired to prove it to the world. Is that so bad? They get feted once in a while? Believe me, my son goes back to his peanut butter and jelly sandwiches like every other kid come Monday.)

So it was an orgy of vegan celebration and conviviality. We are tired but thankful and gratified. Halloween was celebrated, vegan-style.

Sunday, October 5, 2008

I fully have intended to post more but life has been kind of kicking my ass lately, mostly in a good way, like the sort of workout that leaves you feeling sore but kind of tougher than you thought you were. I've had a big assignment, one that required a lot of research of a rather depressing nature, and that was finally turned in Friday, so, while I imagine I'll be getting a bunch of final edits to finish off, the bulk of the piece is done. The past two-and-a-half weeks, though, have meant squeezing as much work as possible into the approximately 2.5 hours my son is in kindergarten and then using my predisposition to insomnia to my advantage by waking up at midnight and writing until around 5 a.m. Needless to say, I've been kind of loopy lately and I think that I've established myself as the Mother Who Occasionally Hallucinatesamong my fellow kindergarten mothers. Everyone needs a role, so I guess I'll take that one. Go, me!

So, given my scattered mind, how about some random thoughts until I'm able to put together a cogent sentence? You say go for it? I think I shall.

1. I love Joe Biden's smile. I don't really have much thought about him other than a sort inclination to dislike him for being such a Washington insider and for supporting the invasion originally. But his smile is truly Cheshire Cat-like which I appreciate. Anyway, I'm certain that he could have mopped the floor with Ms. Palin but refrained because one doesn't know how that would be received by the American public. It could have instigated a big wave of stupid sympathy toward her, which, really, she doesn't deserve.

2. In talking with John, I think I fleshed out part of why my dislike of Ms. Palin is so visceral. In addition to that whole anti-evolution/anti-choice thing, I mean. She reminds me of every passive-aggressively rude person who's ever questioned me about being vegan. Like, I can just imagine her sitting across the table from me (truly, heaven forbid such an arrangement) and saying in her bizarrely Fargo-meets-The-Church-Lady sort of way, "You're vegan? Well, isn't that special. I actually think that people matter more than chickens and cows. But, hey, more power to ya!"

3. Her distinctly inappropriate winking and weirdly plastered on smile fill me with a sort of wobbliness which makes me consider that she may be my personal kryptonite.

4. My six-year-old said something really cute the first night of the debate between Obama and McCain. I was explaining to him what a debate was and how we were hoping and expecting that Obama would win. "I am too," he said. "Why?" "'Cause I've been hearing a lot of good things about him lately."

5. Garbanzo beans probably make it into five or more of my meals a week. Just so you know.

Monday, September 29, 2008

When I read online that David Foster Wallace committed suicide a few weeks back, I was heartbroken. A brilliant essayist and novelist, DFW managed to crystallize his thoughts in such interesting, dynamic ways. I'm generally not a fan of post-modernist fiction as I think I just like a classic, well-told, muscular story and the PoMo insistence on thick slabs of irony to go with every situation is distancing, indulgent and tiresome to me. Not so with DFW, considered a leader of the PoMo school, who managed to be both brilliant and engaged, not sneering in his academic ivory tower at the rest of us plebeian sloths. He never tried to mask his genius in his work, nor did he perform unnecessary conceptual gymnastics to impress us with his finesse: he was able to, in that way that all great artists are able to, channel God or his higher power or his greatest self, and plug into that in a way that leaves most of us mere mortals stammering and stunned. He did all this while wearing a bandanna and looking, for all intents and purposes, like he was ready to take a hackysack break at the Phish show. Apparently bandanna-wearing, hyper-talented artists also can suffer from debilitating depression and sometimes it doesn't matter if you've won major awards and are at the pinnacle of your field: you can not go on for one minute longer. At some point on September 12, David Foster Wallace ran out of minutes. Another great mind lost, and we are stuck here with Sarah Palin and her notion that dinosaurs and humans co-existed. I hope David's having a good laugh at this. [I feel like it's necessary to say that Ms. Palin's debate with Senator Biden will be the final nail in their spiraling-out-of-control coffin. G'bye, Sarah!]

Second, I was saddened when I heard of Paul Newman's passing, but it certainly wasn't a shock to my system. He was in his eighties, generally when people can expire without raising a lot of eyebrows, and my mother gets enough of those gossip magazines - not that I read such trash... okay, if it's open to a page, I might grab a furtive glimpse - that I had seen assertions that he had cancer. It was still sad, though, to note the end of someone who was so enriched by giving. I think he understood that his chiseled jaw, pout and piercingly blue eyes were simply happy accidents of DNA, the way his mother and his father's code melded together in his form. It was nothing to take credit for, nothing to be overly proud to possess. It simply was. What he could do, though, with whatever doors opened for him because of his eyes and his smile and his style, was give to others and that he did, to the tune of more than 25o,ooo,ooo, at last count. I am not in general big into celebrity worship - in fact, it disgusts me - because I have been active long enough to know there are so many good people who work tirelessly to build a better world. Paul Newman, though, stands out as the genuine article.

In a world of inane celebrities and a cynical culture that aspires to reach the lowest common denominator, I am going to miss these two.

Shalom, everyone.

PS - Happy Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, to all. May 5769 (in the Jewish calendar) bring us what so many people have been asking for: no more Republicans in the White House for at least another eight years.

Friday, September 26, 2008

Things are quiet around these parts (spoken with a Gunsmoke-y accent, please) because I am busy writing an article with a fast approaching deadline. I'll get back to the agitated vegan, feminist grindstone as soon as possible.

Monday, September 22, 2008

I love the weekend. It took me about twenty-five years to love Sundays, but at some point, about the point when I realized that Sunday did not necessarily mean an angry drunk bullying and bellowing and generally making my stomach hurt, I lightened up and began to enjoy it, too. Now Sunday has earned its rightful place cushioned up next to Saturday as 'the weekend', not as a day to test that my survival instincts are operating at peak performance, and so I have two full days of pleasantness, generally. And Friday nights will always feel full of promise to me, I think, like the way they did in college, as my friends and I planned our exploits (shop! parties! bars! shop! parties! bars!) and were seldom disappointed.

These days, I loathe shopping, I can't remember the last time I was in a bar, and parties are rare. My weekends are usually comprised, in the warm months, of running around like the proverbial kid at the candy store, sampling madly, dipping my hands into the bins. I have a quaintly low-tech (actually it's more like no-tech) date book that I carry in my bag and have filled with notes. Garfield Park Conservatory Country Fair, 10:00 - 4:00. Free Day at Field Museum. Renegade Craft Fair. I do not discriminate or use common sense judgment when I'm jotting these down as many conflict and are not convenient to one another: I simply want to record them as possibilities and prioritize them when the time is right. Sorting out our weekend days often goes something like this,

Me: So there's an art fair in Lakeview Saturday.John: I also want to see Mucca Pazza. Remember?Me: They're playing for free next weekend at the Wabash thingy.John: Don't we have the vegan family pic-Me: They play early, like 2:00. I don't know - I wrote it down. Anyway, it's early. We can do both.John: Cool. So we can do that then.Me: Yeah. But I'm not sure about the Lakeview thing. Might be lame. I also want to take [our son] to Wicker Park because he's been talking about the playground there.John: Well, we can do that and just hop on the Blue Line and transfer downtown.Me: I know, but there's also this free festival on Chicago so that's close to Wicker Park and I wanted to stop at Quimby's anyway.John: So why don't we just do that?Me: We should. What if the Lakeview thing isn't lame, though?

Weekends in Chicago in the warm months try their darnedest to make up for the harsh reality that awaits us in January. They're so damn cheerful, these bright yellow smiley faces of warm days, and I take as much in as possible, basking in the radiance like I can store it for that brutal, gray Saturday when the sooty snow is up to my knee and we can't get out of the garage without a half-hour of shoveling. On those days, you may as well stay home and try to organize your basement, make a book with your son, dream about palm trees. When autumn folds into winter and then spring, I am generally more productive and I embrace that productivity fully when the time is right. I have piles of writing projects to dive into and that feels right when the snow is pressing in on me.

For now, though, it is warm so I am on the move. It's closing in on us, though.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Something that I've been thinking a lot about lately is how on a personal and collective scale we become complicit in our own undoing. There have been messages going back and forth with the fantastic group of progressive mothers I am so fortunate to be a part of, and since the Sarah Palin Thing (last time I'll refer to her by name in this post), I've sensed not only a growing despair, but almost a forfeiture of this election, as though it were a forgone conclusion that once again, the bad guys are going to win. Well, certainly the Roves and Republican evildoers have worked very tirelessly to undermine our confidence in the right to a fair and legal election, and it is understandable that given the last eight years - one shock to our system after the next with these fiends - we are a little shaky, as though we've got some national form of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. I'm not even being flippant when I say this.

As I wrote to my friends, though, I had to think about that Cubs game in 2003. (I am just about the last person to reference sports in any capacity, so this alone is noteworthy.) You know the one where the fan reached over and seemingly snatched the ball out of that outfielder's glove, effectively causing two runs? I wasn't watching it at the time, but my friends were over and I could hear them scream and groan and shriek. I have seen The Incident a few times since on replay. What I saw was a team that was ahead, in both the series and the game, crumble upon itself, almost literally. At the moment that the (idiot) fan reached over and grabbed the ball, there seemed to be a deathly silence that fell over Wrigley Field, and, five outs away from the World Series, within seconds, the players and their fans all bought into the so-called curse of the Cubs, that they were doomed to disappoint eternally. It was a potent and dramatic display of the self-fulfilling prophesy carried out on the world stage, and if it weren't so depressing, it would be fascinating. After that moment, the Marlins (thank you, Wikipedia!) scored run after run, the golden, overachieving child to the Cub's underachieving child, and the Chicago team, having bought so completely into the myth of their inevitable failure, may as well have been cardboard cutouts there on the field. They were already gone.

My analogy is this: we must not complicit in helping the far-right build their myth of inevitability. They are as dependent on us - progressive, smart, compassionate people - buying into it and playing that role as they depend on anything. In fact, we are doing their work for them, the work of crooks and thieves and misogynists, when we wring our hands and believe in their supposed power. What I am saying here is that we absolutely must be steadfast in bringing people away from the McCain camp through outreach and phone calls and going door-to-door, but we must also be disciplined and conscious of our thought patterns. We need to focus on what we are moving toward, not what want to move away from: we need to destroy that paradigm that is so tempting among the abused. The first group of people whose minds we need to change is our own. Not buying into the Republican inevitability myth and refusing the role of mistreated (but good-hearted) loser is as essential to winning as anything. So let's be disciplined and generous with ourselves and leave that old, worthless dynamic in the dust. It cannot exist itself without our participation. The Republicans will be frothing at the mouth for us to play the role they've assigned us. It'll be a delight to disappoint them.